We played WWW last week (for reference – I wrote a WWW playtest Nathan shared here:
https://plus.google.com/+NathanPaoletta/posts/6gwFw9PsSyP) and this is more of a feedback question/answer post since the summary of the game was there.
One of the things +Nathan Paoletta asked in my original post was:
I’m really interested in the quasi-GMless structure you used, which sounds very functional, especially when Creative is the less-wrestling-knowledgeable player (for all the playtests so far that I know about, Creative has been a total wrestling nerd). I’ve been worried that this would cause trouble, but it sounds like you guys solved it pretty well.
So I have read the rules, but I was really weak-sauce on the layout of an episode – but I can follow directions ^_~ So in your advice for game 1 you say: discuss story arcs, and write simple plots. And in general GM advice you say: Book for maximum drama.
So after our characters were done I posited to the guys: what’s standard episode layout? So knowing that it’s two hours, I knew I wanted to book ~4-5 matches – which discounting commercial breaks, interviews and the like makes the matches a bit long (they talked about different types of matches, like squash matches) – but we decided to run with it.
The guys explained that usually folks cut promos before they are due to go on stage to build momentum and audience investment, so I had a rough idea of when each person had to have a non-wrestling segment inserted before and after a match. And I personally decided to have one or two ‘off-camera’ moments for folks to discuss their career and build up +Real type of goals and interactions. I asked for a list of ideas of stuff to stick in these segments (promos, interviews which are just excuses for promos, actual locker room stuff, camera placed to record locker room stuff as if it were candid, obvious on-camera Creative talking to wrestlers about goals etc. etc. etc.).
This was my version of ‘draw maps, leave blanks’. The matches were set, but I wanted to be flexible for the surrounding material, because after a good match you might want a post-interview. You might want an off-camera Talent moment (when they’re at +4 audience) demanding a match. You might want to throw curve balls. You might just want something real to have as a downbeat. So I wanted to be able to use these to control player energy and game pacing without being blank when it came time to call for something. So I had my pics list, but was open and flexible, with some ideas about where I could put promos for the general gist of flow.
We also made a list of NTC names we could pull from. Just name, and quick gimmick.
* The Puma. Big cat gimmick. Technical/strength wrestler.
* Fighter Hayabusa. Jobber. Sells hard. Crowd loves him.
Taking a cue from Danger Patrol I did a: LAST SEASON ON World Wide Wrestling! And I had everyone talk about a major highlight from last season. We did two rounds: everyone say one thing about their character, and one thing involving an NTC. Why? Because it’s hard to create stories in a vacuum. Wrestling stories flow into one another. I asked some leading questions to get us started.
“So the WWW version of Wrestlemania just ended. What’s the name of the Big Belt, and who won it? Now, why didn’t they deserve it, and why are the fans upset?”
When we found out that Puma beat the Amazon for the Jungle Belt, and found out that he cheated – we knew he had heel turned. The Veteran wanted to bring honor and justice back to the League. Similarly when we talked about The Condor making his big debut, and wrestling (sometimes in tag, and sometimes just with coaching) from the Baron, I knew that this was his time to get his own legs and shine, so the arc was going to be the split/fight between the Baron and the Condor.
So by doing ‘last season on’ I got a good sense of what this season’s story arcs were going to be.
Next I need to book matches. I knew I wanted to see how the three different match types worked, so I wanted an NTC/NTC matchup, an NTC/Talent matchup, and a Talent/Talent one. I book accordingly, and rank according to Audience. Then I add a tag-team-match so we could talk about that a bit at least. Where I can I match Face to Heel. And we make sure everyone knows roughly the story of the match going in. Just a sentence since it might change due to promos and such.
Then I secretly underlined who I wanted to win. This was the only secret action on my part as Creative. It wasn’t too complicated – we’re early season. We want to get the crowd worked up and invested. I book mostly heels to win, so that folks get that ‘over the top’ storyline as the faces fight back. Book for maximum drama right?
One last note I wanted to give about doing it a bit more GMless – it’s that one thing you can do is have the announcer interpret the die rolls. The players say what they do (moves leading up to the spot, the spot, make the roll, choose their pick and announce) and the announcer will interpret that into the fiction.
When did you announce the booked winner of matches (especially in that final General-Puma match)? Or did you all go into matches already knowing the booking?
I did that later in the match. Usually right as it looked like the face was winning and in control. I wanted to make them really question if they were going to win by breaking Kayfabe, or stick with the call. They knew most of the parameters, except who was going to win going in.
The matches run largely without Creative interference. The players will pass to each other. They collaborate to form the story and technique. The announcer often narrates crowd reaction. The only time I had to step in was usually to make hard moves on misses (which due to momentum don’t happen often). The players and announcers largely work together to run everything. You just have to tell them who wins, throw in a few curve balls (like El Toro running in to pull out the pin), throw in some color with the jumbotron and crowd reactions – and shake things up.
As long as two players aren’t feuding, I was actually comfortable handing someone at the table an NTC for the Talent/NTC matches too. I can always throw curve balls in (adding injuries usually on the NTC side, or problems if I feel like it might make things interesting) but they know what they’re doing, and the player/announcer combo drives the story just fine.
Creative didn’t feel like a hard separation. I didn’t have clocks to push plot, and demand scarcity. Mostly I just called hard moves, came up with storylines, and added some curve balls (largely real relating to future career, and things that might mix up how folks felt outside kayfabe) to keep the players engaged, driven, and anchor the story. So the Co-GMy stuff worked fine for me.
And the flow of Wrestling excitement and knowledge flowed backwards just fine. Watching them mark up and geek out, and play those matches to the hilt was awesome. You could really feel the love.
Ok onto details:
Comments and Suggestions:
Sweet spot in terms of players – This game’s interesting insofar as it seems to want more players rather than fewer. Found the sweet spot to be 2 players wrestling, 1-2 people announcing (I kept finding that I wanted to have a second commentator to bounce ideas or color off of).
Announcer Names at creation – One of the things thrown out as a point is that certain announcers develop personas, styles, catchphrases, things they root for and so on. So establishing an announcer when you make a char is popular. Also introducing who you are as announcing (since heels being jerk guest-announcers is apparently popular, and hilarious when done in game).
Examples – I realize this is a beta, but some examples would go a long way. Some of this is probably unnecessary for die-hard fans (what sort of non-match segments can you have, what sorts of gimmick matches can you have other than tag-teams or big brawls – like the Undertakers Coffin-match) but depending on era, and clarity of memory this might help anyone. I also found that figuring out how the general wrestling move works is a bit hard. Some examples for what is a +work vs +look is tough.
Like ‘the General’ was a veteran, and wanted to do an elbow drop. Couldn’t figure out if this was something Veterans do a lot (gimmick move), if it put anyone in jeopardy (we said no … although most of these might), or if it was just the usual +Work. Might want to have at creation folks write down 2-3 moves they’re well known for (power bombs, elbow drops, piledrivers) so that it’s part of THEIR version of the gimmick for +Look rolls.
Sample Characters and Gimmicks – I wouldn’t mind helping with this, but you could probably use a small stable of characters. For Con play you want to be able to whip up NTCs and a league for folks to play in on short notice. In a stable or at-home game, this will evolve naturally, but when considering if you want to run it zero prep, this would go a long way. We fumbled through it (see old-nintendo wrestling game names) and it was super-fun, but in a tighter 2-hour con slot, I would either have to prep beforehand, or require something like this.
Here’s also some feedback on mechanics:
Stat linking seems wierd – In AW the stats were a reflection of the sorts of scenes characters would spotlight in (hot scenes, hard scenes etc). Here, where there are even fewer hard moves (due to momentum) it’s harder to pin down the sort of things that stats relate to. Real might reflect ‘real’ scenes, but it’s tougher to figure out what’s a ‘look’ scene.
Characters need more questions – there are very few Qs for the characters to start with heat at the beginning, and it feels like they are very hard-set. This becomes further limiting if your’e trying to develop a specific persona (heel/face) that some don’t match, or if your table has more than 4 people at it.
Momentum gain is a feedback loop – Probability on momentum is a bit off. Since 2d6 is a tight percentage, a +1 or -1 can make a huge difference. Once you pick up a little momentum, you can keep spinning it into an infinite pile by playing the odds. +2 is really strong and +3 becomes a monster stat (72% chance you’ll gain at least one momentum) and often it felt like folks would spend a momentum to zero-sum a game, or gain. I’m not sure if you want to lower stats and start with more momentum (audience base), or tweak momentum gain, but this seems like it needs a bit of tweaking.
Momentum as a concept seems pretty solid. In AW hard moves are the sword of damocles, and presumably these folks have a bit more control over their destinies and the show in this setting and won’t have everything fall apart regularly. Moreover, with low stats, you can only really push hard with the crowd on your side (which seems apropos). But hard moves are also a way of moving the story forward. In general getting a 10+ is a termination state (you get everything you want, scene/goal ends). A 6- sets up story/position for more than a few rolls, and 7-9 will give you enough to keep you going, but not enough that the scene is over. Adding plusses will lower the 6- which reduces the amount of moves the GM can make (removing them from the game, and to some extent lowering their agency) and lowers chance and random twists from affecting the story arcs.
I ended up making moves when they got that 6- even if they bought up. It seemed to be ok.
If I may suggest – with things as they stand you may want to think about 12+ effects on moves. Some of the things you keep in the 10 level (+1 Audience) may want to shift up to the advanced success.
Your current game flow seems to be: Start low. Play to your strengths till you can get momentum. Try to ride that into the ring. Play off of your partner and work together to build up a monster quantity, and tag a finisher. Putting certain goals into that 12+ range can play into that momentum build even more.
Audience is too easy – Starting at 2 audience I felt like it would take a few games to reach the top. But it seemed like all of us hit +4 and it was a question of whomever went later would usually cinch the Over for the next game. This feels like it might need a bit of tweaking (maybe look at the status traits in Undying). Feels like you should reset to your starting audience after the show as a whole goes up. Walking into a match with less than 4 heat and working up your heat so you could get your audience was kind of cool.
Also folks after getting the +4 wanted to ride the fame/crowd/position for a moment, and usually would go talk to creative (I made an owner character named Lucy) to demand matches and try to make a case for themselves for next session.
Pins – Was surprised that there were no rules for tap out or forcing a tap-out. There are rules for going into resting holds (albeit no real mechanical effect or suggestion for exit) and pass-offs, but traditionally there are a few attempts at pins with folks bucking the hold. Just seemed interesting there were rules for other conditions, but not pins.
Questions:
+4 match or instance – If I get a +4 audience on a working the crowd, then my opponent does the same – is the ‘both keep +4’ rule in effect on a single roll (same time clause) or single match?
Avg Audience on Groups – If there are any multiple person/tag-team events their audience would immediately move the event to top billing. You should just take the top two in this instance so that single matches could still be the main even (see wrestlemania for example).
https://plus.google.com/+NathanPaoletta/posts/6gwFw9PsSyP
